The spatiotemporal dynamics of conditioned behavior: First-order and higher-order conditioning.

Abstract

Pavlovian conditioning procedures generate spatially and temporally distinct behaviors. For example, after rats have received pairings of a lever with food, they approach the food well during the lever (called goal-tracking) and interact with it (called sign-tracking), with these two spatially distinct behaviors being distributed differently across the temporal duration of the lever. Experiment 1 assessed the development of these spatiotemporally defined behaviors during first-order conditioning, as a function of the sequence in which the lever and food occurred (lever→food or food→lever) and the interval between them (1 s or 11 s). In Experiment 2, the same rats received higher-order conditioning trials in which an auditory stimulus was paired with the lever and the emergence of goal-tracking to the auditory stimulus was assessed. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 revealed dissociations between where and when learning was evident during first- and higher-order conditioning, underscoring the need for models of Pavlovian conditioning to explain both the nature and timing of different conditioned responses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).